[lukewarm]

As part of my never ending series of interlinked projects I've expanded from aluminum casting to dreams of casting iron. This is my home made cupola so far. It is still a ways from being ready for iron melting.

The pictures are pretty self explanatory I guess. We have a squirrel cage motor providing air (not sure on the CFM but it's what we had on hand and might get upgraded later) through four tuyeres. Our refractory, or lack thereof, is kaolin clay. We will most likely resort to using home made mullite if we can get the KOH and sulfuric acid to make alumina.

A question I have to any experienced people is am I wrong in my assumption that I can use anthracite coal instead of coke. I believe the reason for using coke is that during the coking process impurities like sulfur are driven off which adversely affect cast iron. Can I use anthracite coal or is it necessary to make it into coke first?

Here are some pictures, and please feel free to comment or critique anything you see. I'm keen to learn! Thanks

[paprjam]

Looks pretty good. What size is the bore and what size drum is that? I don't know if that blower will have enough pressure to work well for you. Squirrel cages don't seem to like much back pressure.